That fight with Boetsch and Okami was an awesome fight. I thought I had that fight in the bag after the second round and was about to check that fucker done, then BAAM Timmy bagged em, what a come back! I knew I was done for after the prelims at 50% correct (or incorrect). WTF Kongo, was expecting a little more from ya... definitely underestimated Hunt. Benson is a bad ass, should have picked him.

Anthony Pettis, Vaughan Lee, Benson Henderson and Frankie Edgar each earned $65,000 fight-night bonuses for their performances at Saturday's UFC 144 event.

Pettis earned the night's "Knockout of the Night" award, Lee picked up the "Submission of the Night" bonus, and headliners Henderson and Edgar earned "Fight of the Night" honors.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) learned of the bonus winners and award amounts at UFC 144's post-fight press conference.

UFC 144 took place at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The main card aired on pay-per-view, and FX and Facebook carried the prelims.

Pettis kicked off the night's main card against lightweight Joe Lauzon. In a bout that had title implications, Pettis struck quickly. Just 81 seconds into the fight, the former WEC champion prompted a knockout stoppage when he blasted Lauzon with a flush head kick and then followed it up with punches.

Lee, meanwhile, tapped out fellow bantamweight Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto in the first round. After recovering from an early knockdown, the Brit wobbled Yamamoto, who tried to take the fight to the mat. But Lee moved from a triangle choke to an armbar to get the tap-out and the night's only submission victory.

Henderson and Edgar, meanwhile, fought in the main event. In an evenly matched and back-and-forth five-rounder, Henderson ultimately got the judges' nod (via 49-46, 48-47 and 49-46 scores) and was crowned the UFC's new lightweight champion.

WEC never die, indeed.

With a pair of impressive wins at Sunday's UFC 144 event in Saitama, Japan, former WEC champions Benson Henderson (16-2 MMA, 4-0 UFC) and Anthony Pettis (15-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC) will now apparently meet for the UFC lightweight title.

Following the pay-per-view event in which Henderson earned the UFC belt with a unanimous-decision win over Frankie Edgar and Pettis scored a highlight-reel finish of Joe Lauzon, UFC president Dana White suggested that was the likely plan.

"I think he's going to get it," White said when asked if Pettis had earn a shot at the belt.

UFC 144 took place at Saitama Super Arena, and the event's main card aired in the U.S. on pay-per-view.

Henderson and Pettis have a well-documented history, of course. The two met in December 2010's WEC 53 event, the final fight card in that promotion's history, and "Showtime" used a fifth-round kick off the cage to score a unanimous-decision win and take the belt from Henderson.

Pettis was then supposed to face then-UFC champ Edgar for the belt, but a rare championship draw forced "Showtime" to the sidelines while the champ rematched Gray Maynard. During that span, Pettis lost to Clay Guida, putting his championship aspirations on hold.

Meanwhile, Nate Diaz and Jim Miller meet in the main event of May's UFC on FOX 3 event, and many MMA pundits had that contest pegged as a No. 1 contender fight.

White declined to speculate on how the whole scenario will play out.

"We'll see what happens," White told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "I hate to do this the night of the fights, and you guys know that, but you always ask me.

"We'll see what happens. I guess I'll leave you guys in suspense."

When Edgar was informed of the potential plans, he admitted he was disappointed.

"I'm not trying to shoot anybody out of anything they deserve, but I had to do two immediate rematches, so what's fair?" Edgar asked.

Unsurprisingly, Pettis was a bit more upbeat in regards to the revelation.

"I was supposed to get a title shot last year," Pettis said. "We've got some unfinished business. Let's take care of it."

Former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson (32-10 MMA, 7-4 UFC) dreamed of a return to Japan, but the result ended up as more of a nightmare in truth.

And following his decision loss to Ryan Bader (14-2 MMA, 7-2 UFC) at Sunday's UFC 144 event in Saitama, Japan, Jackson admitted he wasn't terribly surprised at the result.

"If I'm going to be critically honest, I'm not surprised that I lost the fight," Jackson told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

Jackson's troubles, of course, began far before he stepped into the cage with Bader. A knee injury suffered in training threatened his participation in the fight, though Jackson ultimately elected to carry on in hopes of putting in a crowd-pleasing performance in front of the same Japanese crowd that cheered him on during the glory days of his PRIDE run.

Despite committing to the fight, Jackson encountered problems during his weightcut and was only able to make it down to 211 pounds for the light heavyweight matchup.

"I almost didn't make it to the fight, but I didn't want to pull out for the Japanese fans," Jackson said. "I injured my knee pretty bad, and my doctor told me not to fight. But it wasn't real serious. I didn't need surgery or nothing, but he told me it wasn't a good idea to fight. I decided to fight anyway."

Jackson looked tentative when the fight began, and he had trouble landing any significant blows on the feet. He had one vintage moment in the second round when he slammed Bader on his head and neck. However, Bader quickly bounced back and scored a slam of his own, and Jackson admitted he wilted after that turn of events.

"I re-injured the knee when Bader slammed me," Jackson said. "It was one of those things. I was worried about it. Before the slam, I wasn't doing a really good job. I was worried about it, and I had to lose a lot of weight since I couldn't really run and stuff. It was downhill from there.

"I hurt my knee, and I just wanted to put on an exciting fight, and I was just happy to make it here and try and put on a show for the Japanese fans."

With the result, Jackson has now suffered back-to-back defeats and isn't in any real title contention. A potential rematch with Mauricio "Shogun" Rua still looms on the horizon, but there aren't too many more obvious matchups in line.

Prior to the UFC 144 fight, many MMA fans and pundits speculated that it could potentially be Jackson's final career outing. He's admitted in the past he struggles to find motivation to train, and he's also expressed his desire to hang up the gloves at age 35.

After Jackson's UFC 144 performance, the talk quickly resurfaced, but the longtime veteran (currently 33 years old) said he was actually re-energized by what he saw in camp prior to the injury.

"I know I'm getting to the end of my career because I said I didn't want to fight past 35," Jackson said. "But honestly, before I hurt me knee, you guys should have seen the way that I was training. I've got really good sparring partners, and I've got this really good wrestler names Tyson Jeffries that kicks my butt, and in this camp, I was kicking his butt. I was taking him down and wrestling got real competitive. That's how I hurt me knee because he's one of the best wrestlers I know.

"I was sparring really good, and I was looking like a superstar, then I hurt me knee. That made me think, 'Oh, man, I've got a lot more time to fight.' When I got hurt, it was just unfortunate, but now, I know what I can do if I come in 100 percent."

“I’m not a judge, but when I think something is wrong and it needs to be righted… he’s here and he got paid his win bonus,” said UFC president Dana White at the UFC 144 post-fight press conference in Saitama, Japan, on Saturday night.

White has never been one to hold his tongue, and when it comes to referees and judges, he’s been much more than vocal. He’s been a virtual vuvuzela, bringing attention to one of the more desperate issues in mixed martial arts in need of an overhaul.

The UFC exec was answering a question about what he thought of Takeya Mizugaki’s fight.

Mizugaki face Chris Cariaso in one of the UFC 144 preliminary bouts. He took Cariaso to the mat several times, grounding and pounding him, being the primary aggressor throughout the majority of the fight.

When the scorecards were ticked off, so were the vast majority of fans that sounded off on Twitter and Facebook. Evidently, White was as well.

Cariaso got the unanimous nod from the judges, while a vast portion of the vocal majority saw it the opposite way.

White agreed. He couldn’t alter the outcome of the bout, but he could mitigate the damages. He couldn’t hand Mizugaki a W, but he did award him his win bonus.

See how the pros scored the main event righthere

Rampage shows his class with his fans in the land of the rising sun.

Fight Metric results for the main event right here